Did Candy Crush Get The Best Of Me?

We all know that if you are a part of the gambling world, you like to play games. Whether they are slot games, table games, online, offline or land-based. Gambling costs money to do so.

What if you are not a gambler, do you still pay for games? Games that can be found online via your computer or cell phone. Games that have in-app purchases. Games such as Farm Hero Saga or my favorite Candy Crush Saga.

I started a topic about Candy Crush when I first started playing the game and was on level 86. I am happy to say that I am now on level 383 as of last night. I advanced to that level in record speed. "Record speed" for me may be at a turtle's pace for others. But however fast (or slow) I got there, I am there. Now the question is ... "Did I make purchases to get there?" I'll answer that in a minute.

There are free options and tricks one can do to advance through Candy Crush and I have taken advantage of them this whole time. Players can request a "life" from their Facebook friends who play the game also. They can also request that their friends help them unlock levels so they can continue to advance for free. I have never asked for a "life" or asked for help with unlocking levels. I have always used the "tricks". Tricks such as resetting my cell phone's time to 3 hours ahead after I played my allotted 5 lives because I didn't want to wait the 30 minutes until I received another "life". Also, when I reached the end of an episode and needed to advance, I logged out of Facebook in the game and played one "quest" level. Once you advance through that level in the "quest", you have to wait 24 hours to play the next "quest". So what did I do? I changed the time on my cell phone to 24 hours ahead and played the next "quest". I have played all three "quest" games in a matter of minutes and not in 72 hours. Once I am done playing for a session, I reset the date and time to current. And after I advance my phone's date and time that they are so far in the future, I uninstall the app and reinstall it, log back into Facebook in the app and I am still on the last level I was on. Such a sweet deal!

The levels do get harder and harder as is expected. There have been levels that I had been stuck on for days but eventually conquered them. There were levels that I had been stuck on for weeks and conquered them. And there were levels that I had been stuck on for over a month. I conquered those also but not on my own using only my "tricks". I made in-app purchases. Oh, the shame! I did this for two levels so far and after buying the extra moves or a combo pack that had extra moves and a special candy, I did pass them. As far as those two levels are concerned, I was one or two jellies away from beating the level and because I was stuck for over a month on each, I gave in and spent some money. $5.95 in total to be exact.

I spend money gambling every week and get nothing out of it ... meaning no cashouts. The reels spin for hours and then they stop when the money runs out. There are rushes when I hit something good but in the end, it's wasted money and wasted time. But it is an activity that I enjoy doing. I never know when I might hit the big one also. All the money I have spent gambling certainly adds up to much, much, much more than I have spent on in-app purchases playing Candy Crush.

What do I get out of playing Candy Crush that I don't get out of gambling? I get the satisfaction that I crushed them! I beat them at their game! I played strategically and won! I am the champion in my Candy Crush world! So the answer is "no". Candy Crush did not get the best of me by taking my money because now I am on level 383 and would have been so depressed if I had to look at level 382 one more time knowing I only had 1 more jelly left to crush!